Joe Byrne - Siege of Glenrowan

Siege of Glenrowan

Byrne started plans with Kelly for another bank raid in Benalla in 1880. However, they were becoming increasingly concerned about Sherritt who they feared was being targeted by police as an informant. While Byrne had previously used Sherritt as a double agent to persuade the police that the gang was planning a raid in the Goulburn River rather than at Jerilderie, both Kelly and Byrne believed that he had turned informant. This prompted Byrne and Dan Kelly to murder Sherritt as an informer on 26 June 1880.

The following day, the Kelly Gang took over Glenrowan, first tearing up the railway line in anticipation of a special trainload of police being sent to capture them. They held over 60 people hostage in the town. Tom Curnow, the schoolmaster of the local school who had won Kelly's trust, escaped and warned the train crew who in turn told the police. This enabled 34 police to surround the Glenrowan Hotel where the bushrangers had again shouted the bar.

Joe Byrne is believed to have been heavily involved in designing the armour worn by all members of the Gang at the siege of Glenrowan. This did not stop him from being shot in the groin by a stray bullet which severed his femoral artery. Eyewitnesses at the hotel claimed that a moment before the bullet struck Joe Byrne dead, he offered the toast "Here's to the bold Kelly Gang!". Another report states that he said "Many more years in the bush for the Kelly Gang!". He died from loss of blood on 28 June 1880. The next day his body was hung on the door of the lock-up at Benalla and photographed by the press. His family did not claim the body and the police refused to hand it over to sympathisers, fearing a funeral would become a rallying point for the simmering rebellion. He was buried on the same day as Sherritt. Dan Kelly and Steve Hart also died on the day of the siege by shooting themselves while Ned Kelly was captured and tried in Melbourne. Ned Kelly was hanged at Old Melbourne Gaol on 11 November 1880. There is a legend that Kelly and Byrne had drafted a Declaration of a Republic of Northeast Victoria which was discovered in Kelly's possession at his capture and was destroyed by the Victorian Government.